Google has witnessed huge savings in its power consumption bill by using artificial intelligence technology provided by its subsidiary DeepMind.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, started using the DeepMind AI system in its data centres a few months ago.
The system has been introduced to reduce power consumed by its data centres by altering computer servers and related equipment like cooling systems, Bloomberg reported.
DeepMind Co-Founder Demis Hassabis was quoted by the publication as saying that the search engine giant has earned “big savings” by deploying DeepMind’s technology to cut its power bill.
Hassabis said that the system has the capability to reduce power usage in the data centres “by several percentage points, which is a huge saving in terms of cost but, also, great for the environment.”
Google said that the savings increase the power usage efficiency (PUE) by 15%.
The search engine said that it consumed 4,402,836 MWh of electricity in 2014, with its data centers accounting for a significant part of consumption.
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According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, the electricity prices paid by companies will be in the range of about $25 to $40 per MWh.
A 10% reduction in its power usage could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for Google over multiple years.
Google is said to have paid about $400m to acquire UK-based DeepMind in 2014.
Founded in 2012, DeepMind makes applications which are used in simulations, e-commerce and games using general-purpose learning algorithms.
DeepMind’s technology is an addition to efforts made by Google to use machine learning in its data centers.
Hassabis said: “It controls about 120 variables in the data centers. The fans and the cooling systems and so on, and windows and other things.
"They were pretty astounded."
Hassabis added that the usage of DeepMind technology just marks the start of the project.
With the knowledge of how the approach works, DeepMind may ask Google to deploy more sensors into its data centers to allow its software to generates additional power savings.
Google said: “Our fleet-wide PUE has dropped significantly since we first started reporting our numbers in 2008. The TTM energy-weighted average PUE for all Google data centers is 1.12, making our data centers among the most efficient in the world.”
